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Hubsessed Office Hours: Loop Marketing and AEO

Hubsessed Office Hours - Loop Marketing and AEO - Oct 27, 2026

  • Chris CarolanHost
  • Casey HawkinsHost

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

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Chris Carolan and Jeannette Grand talked through AEO execution: Chris's case that an AI citation is not a sign of value, Rand Fishkin's post on AI visibility, and new ways to define value. Then Chris asked Breeze whether HubSpot's AEO prompts match what customers actually ask.

Clips from this session

Key takeaways

A citation is not proof of value: Chris explains that finding your page in an AI answer's resource links doesn't mean the AI used anything about you, or named you, in the answer.

Chris's view is that AI will sense content that is inauthentic or only checking a box, so the test for a piece of content is whether you can say it is valuable.

Jeannette's case for the basics: know your customer, their interests and the questions they're asking, and check whether you answer those questions on your website, in social and wherever you appear.

Use the AEO tool's suggestions as a starting point for brainstorming, as Jeannette does: ask what next question a suggestion raises for your customers, and check it against the questions the sales team hears and the transcripts show over and over.

Ask Breeze to check the AEO prompts against what customers actually ask: Chris did, and Breeze compared them with the business and customer profiles and a targeted sample of CRM communications, calling the result directional, not a frequency ranking.

In Breeze's words, as Chris read them: AEO prompt suggestions are not a direct feed of buyer questions, and visibility results show how you appear for the questions selected, not whether those are the right questions to select.

Breeze recommended keeping fewer provider comparison prompts and replacing repetitive category questions with practical, problem-first ones, and it labeled its suggested questions as proposed formulations, not customer quotes.

A marketer cut off from other teams can still reach what those teams hear: as long as emails and calls from sales, support and success flow into HubSpot, Chris says, Breeze can find that unstructured data.

Chris's case for redefining value: measurement has never told the whole story, and a moment when someone learns something they didn't know can be a data point of value.

A rising AEO score is hard not to chase; Chris's advice is to give yourself permission to be where you are, gut check each recommendation, and treat the tool as one more data point beside what you see at events, on LinkedIn and on webinars.

Be curious with AI, Jeannette says: ask whether to trust the data, what it is really telling you, and what you might not be seeing.

Chris's view: if your content isn't valuable, there is no way to trick your way into the answer an AI gives someone.

Questions answered

  1. 00:00How the session runs: whoever joins gets to ask questionsTopic
  2. 00:39Chris asks, "What are you seeing out there right now in terms of AEO execution?"Question
  3. 02:13Jeannette asks back, "What are you seeing out there?"Question
  4. 03:53Citations noise: being cited is not the same as being usedTopic
  5. 07:17Back to basic marketing, and activity metrics that feel like progressTopic
  6. 08:29Rand Fishkin's post: is AI visibility a boondoggle?Topic
  7. 10:12A boondoggle in Chris's view, and the expertise to judge HubSpot's AEO recommendationsTopic
  8. 12:46Measurement never told the whole story: new ways to define valueTopic
  9. 15:13Where humans will be found, and shareable experiences over B2B websitesTopic
  10. 20:28Jeannette asks, "How do you get budget for things when you can't explain the value?"Question
  11. 21:03Complex to understand, not complex to feel: a moment of value as a data pointTopic
  12. 23:26What is in your control: valuable content that answers questions, and humans on videoTopic
  13. 24:28AEO tools as a starting point for brainstorming, and the questions other teams hearTopic
  14. 27:48Chris asks Breeze, "Do these prompts match up with the usual questions that our customers and prospects are asking?"Question
  15. 29:28AI conversations don't start like a search, and why category leaders come up firstTopic
  16. 32:07Breeze's answer: a useful starting set, not yet a validated pictureTopic
  17. 33:57What fits, where the prompt set misses, and which words humans actually useTopic
  18. 35:31Speaking the customer language instead of a company's ownTopic
  19. 36:25Permission to be where you are, and the pull of a non-zero scoreTopic
  20. 38:15Breeze's substitutes: problem-first questions, and the tool as one more data pointTopic
  21. 40:21Breeze's recommendation: AEO prompt suggestions are not a direct feed of buyer questionsTopic
  22. 41:08Zero out of 25: have the conversation instead of chasing the top scorersTopic
  23. 42:55Be curious: asking AI whether to trust the dataTopic
  24. 46:10No way to trick your way into the listTopic
  25. 47:39The game has changed: hand friction to AI, and ask AI before asking colleaguesTopic
  26. 50:34Helping people navigate it, experimenting and play, and the wrapTopic

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